As far as restructure candidates go these are both good ones. Smith’s contract runs a long time, doesn’t have excessive prorated money, and is likely to be a reasonable cost contract for the duration. Dallas is starting to run the prorated money into the higher end now for Smith, but it is still reasonable. If Dallas had a way to avoid redoing the Frederick contract they would have likely been in very good shape moving forward but really had no other option.

We should get the full numbers on this in a few days but based on Archer’s tweet I’d guesstimate that the Cowboys converted $9M of Smith’s salary and $12.6M of Fredericks for a total savings of $17.28M which should put the Cowboys somewhere around $4.5M in cap space. I’ll probably hold off on updating until the official numbers come out.

Jaguars Release Jared Odrick

The Jaguars have seemingly been trying to fix many of the contract missteps they have made in the previous few years and today they added to the list with the release of defensive end Jared Odrick. Odrick was signed in 2015 to a surprising $8.5 million a year contract that contained $17 million in guarantees.

Odrick had a decent first season notching 5.5 sacks but was injured for most of 2016 and there likely wasn’t a spot for him on a rebuilding club that has other players at the position. Odrick is a pretty versatile player and should be able to land a job with another team probably in the $4-5M range. He was the 4th most likely DE to be released in our potential cut series and will save the team $8.5 million this year.

Give the Jaguars some credit for getting anything in return for Thomas. They could have released him right after the Super Bowl rather than allowing $3 million of his salary to guarantee for the year. It was a bit of a gamble but one that paid off. Thomas was number one on my list of tight ends likely to be cut so it was surprising when he was not released. The Jaguars will save $4.7M in cap room with the trade.

The question is whether or not Thomas reworked his deal to go to Miami. Thomas was due $7.1 million this year which is definitely on the higher end for his production, but last year the Dolphins agreed to pay a similar disappointing player in Jordan Cameron $6 million so the Dolphins would not have a big leg to stand on to hope for a deep pay cut unless Thomas just wanted out of Jacksonville that badly.

Technically no trade can occur until the official start of the new league year so the Jaguars will carry Thomas on their roster until March 9. There is always a chance that the Dolphins could back out of the deal in the interim.